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NOVEMBER 30, 2005
YET ANOTHER CARTOONIST LEAVES US
Copley News Service has just announced that cartoonist Dick
Wright is retiring at the end of December. Dick's conservative
cartoons have been a long time feature on our site; he is known
as a very entrepreneurial cartoonist, building a large list of
subscribers in syndication through his personal efforts contacting
editors. With his huge list of newspapers, Dick is one of America's
most widely read cartoonists. Copley News Service is replacing
Dick's cartoons with either Steve
Breen or Michael
Ramirez at subscribing papers.
Dick is the pastor of a church and will
be spending more time with his congregation. We will miss his
cartoons and we wish him well.
THOSE DARN, CHEAP NEWSPAPERS
Sources tell us that another Tribune
company cartoonist bit the dust as the Baltimore Sun's Kevin
Kallaugher (Kal) has accepted a buyout offer. It is expected
that the Sun will not hire a new cartoonist. Until recently the
Sun had two cartoonists, also employing Mike Lane, who took a
buyout and left the Sun last year. Professor
Chris Lamb sent me this op-ed piece below, that he just wrote
for Editor & Publisher.
Cartoon by Mike
Lane, formerly of the Baltimore Sun
The Tribune Company, the Chicago-based
media corporation, continued to do its part to gut journalism
as a vital part of American democracy by announcing massive layoffs
at its newspapers, including the Los Angles Times. Among those
losing their job at the Times was Michael Ramirez, the newspaper's
Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist.
Ramirez's departure was not lost on the
American Association of Editorial Cartoonists.
AAEC president Clay Bennett wrote Tribune
Company CEO Dennis FitzSimons a letter on November 22, saying:
"There are few journalists in a newsroom who can define
the tone and identity of a publication like an editorial cartoon
does. By discarding those who make a newspaper unique, you rob
it of its character. By robbing a newspaper of its character,
you steal its spirit."
Bennett is right.
Ramirez's departure continues a trend that
has seen the number of cartoonists working for daily newspapers
fall to such low numbers they can qualify as endangered species.
Like the bald eagle, editorial cartoonists are worth protecting.
Editorial cartoonists keep a jaundiced
eye on our leaders and expose them for their hypocrisies, follies
and crimes. They remind us that we are a country that prides
itself on its tradition of free expression. Editorial cartoons
are as irreverent as the Boston Tea Party and as American as
the First Amendment.
What makes the Tribune Company's decision
to fire Ramirez all the more absurd is that editorial cartoonists
bring readers to newspapers. If FitzSimons and other media moguls
are interested in preserving the newspaper industry - and I'm
not sure they are -- they need to find ways to keep readers.
FitzSimons isn't alone in his eagerness
to sell out newspapers and their indispensable function in American
society; he is, however, the poster child for what's wrong with
the newspaper industry.
In an October 10 article in The New Yorker,
media critic Ken Auletta wrote: "Like most newspaper companies
in the United States, the Tribune Company has to confront not
only declining circulation and disappointing advertising sales
but a belief on Wall Street that newspapers are a poor investment."
This is not to suggest that newspapers
are not profitable. They are. It is common for a newspaper to
make an annual profit of 25 percent or more.
But newspapers shouldn't be viewed the
same as other companies. Newspapers have an intrinsic value that
should not - nor cannot - be measured in dollars. A democracy
depends on an informed citizenry, and an informed citizenry depends
on an aggressive newspaper industry. The Tribune Company's cuts
to their newspapers' editorial staffs aren't just bad for the
newspaper industry, they're bad for America.
When the Tribune Company bought the Times
Mirror Company five years ago, they got a number of highly reputable
newspapers -- the Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, Newsday,
and Hartford Courant. The Tribune Company has cut editorial staffs
to drive up profits. The result has been that all the aforementioned
are weaker newspapers than they were five years ago. As is the
company's flagship newspaper, the Chicago Tribune.
In his letter to FitzSimons, Bennett criticized
the Tribune Company's announcement that it would not replace
Ramirez. Bennett said he hoped the Tribune Company's future layoffs
would spare its other cartoonists - Ken Kallaugher of the Baltimore
Sun, Walt Handlesman of Newsday and Bob Englehart of the Courant
-- all among the better cartoonists in America.
Bennett has reason to be skeptical.
When Jeff MacNelly, who won two Pulitzer
Prizes with the Chicago Tribune, died in 2000, the newspapers
vowed that it would replace him. The promise continues to go
unfulfilled. As does the promise of American journalism.
Chris Lamb, PhD, author of Drawn to Extremes:
The Use and Abuse of Editorial Cartoonists, is an associate professor
of Media Studies at the College of Charleston in Charleston,
SC. He can be reached at lambc@cofc.edu.
NOVEMBER 25 ,2005
DURST ON GIVING THANKS
GIVING THANKS
Raging Moderate, by Will Durst
Aaah. Thanksgiving.The very bestest holiday
of them all. Food, family, football: three of the four Fs. Not
to mention four-story-tall helium balloons on rope tethers. What
a day. Forty-foot cartoon characters, tryptophan overdosing,
lime Jello with carrot shreds AND a chance to see the Dallas
Cowboys lose? Where's the bad? The good news is that right now
it's not that difficult to come up with a list of what to be
thankful for. You start with the old standbys: a wonderful family,
good health, odd friends and the fact that we're Americans and
don't have to worry about the president calling in an air strike
and bombing us yet. Then you move on to the obvious.
Anchor Steam Christmas Ale and double cheeseburgers
on a butter-grilled bun. But in these troubling times it's also
important to look beyond our personal cubicles and find the universal
threads that weave together to make up the fabric of our lives.
I have no idea what that meant either. Mostly it's just a segue
into a list of other things we should all be thankful for. "We"
meaning that highly influential splinter group encompassing political
comedians and editorial cartoonists.
· China.
For its status as a safe publicity haven for
any politician sinking in the polls faster than a gravel truck
with no brakes off a hairpin cliff turn into a mountain lake.
Re: November trips for both California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
and President George W Bush.
· France. Because
now the French are revolting. But that's redundant, isn't it?
· Robert Novak
for his inability to keep a low profile since leaking the name
of CIA agent Valerie Plame. Does the term "hubris"
have any meaning here?
· Our State Department
for invading a country based on the ramblings of a source the
CIA nicknamed "Curveball."
· Corporate marketers
for their conspicuous patriotic refusal to infringe on the sanctity
of the Fourth of July by delaying the start of their Christmas
campaigns until early August.
· The 23rd Amendment
for prohibiting this President from serving more than two terms.
· Vice President
Cheney for his epic condescension. A man without whom we would
never be cognizant of the subtle intricacies of the concept of
"compassionate torture."
· President Bush
for his use of the tactic of "stonewalling," washing
all us Boomers in a nostalgic wave of a better time.
· The administration
for wanting to have their turkey and eat it too. Swift Boating
anybody who dares suggest we leave Iraq, then having generals
leak plans to do the exact same thing.
· Karl
Rove, Scott McLellan and Scooter Libby for their unceasing and
continuing efforts to stretch the bounds of human incredulity.
And oh yeah, let's not forget Tom DeLay and Bill Frist. And Pat
Robertson. And the entire Executive Branch. And every Democrat
breathing save Congressman John Murtha. I salute each and every
one of these gentle people for their part in making us rethink
on a daily basis exactly how much crap we're willing to swallow
to keep our SUVs full of gas.
· Congress. For
the construction of a Prescription Medicare plan just a wee bit
murkier than the instructions for a wire bookcase translated
from the original Mandarin into Sanskrit before being printed
on gray paper with insufficient toner in something resembling
English. A little.
· Lobbyist Jack
Abramoff for the pure chutzpa of convincing an Indian tribe to
pay for his FedEx Stadium luxury suite to watch the Redskins
play.
Will Durst had his turkey and ate it too.
And it was good.
Catch Durst at The Chandelier
Ballroom in Hartford, Wisconsin this Saturday night, and at Zanies
in downtown Chicago all next week. Will
Durst is a political comedian who has performed around the world.
He is a familiar pundit on television. His two CDs are available
at laugh.com. Look for Will's collection of columns "Raging
Moderate" in a bookstore near you soon. Email Will at willdurst@sbcglobal.net.
©2005 Will Durst.
While I agree with most things Will
Durst says, I have to correct him on today's column. It is the
22nd Amendment that set presidential term limits in 1951--thank
God! The 23rd Amendment gave DC the right to tell 3 electors
to vote for--gulp--W.
Cheryl Mason
social studies teacher
Come
on over and see our new Thanksgiving cartoons (and visit our "Save
the Turkeys" cartoons!)
NOVEMBER 23, 2005
VENT TO THE TRIBUNE COMPANY
Clay
Bennett, the president of the Association of American Editorial
Cartoonists (AAEC) wrote the letter below to the president of
the Tribune Company, Dennis FitzSimons. Michael
Ramirez was recently laid off from his job as the cartoonist
for Tribune's Los Angeles Times. Tribune's flagship paper, the
Chicago Tribune, has been without a cartoonist for years since
Jeff MacNelly died. Tribune's Baltimore Sun and Hartford Courant
are now threatening to lay off their cartoonists Kevin Kallaugher
and Bob Englehart. It is a political cartoonist bloodbath as
the Tribune company lays off newsroom staff to raise profit levels
at it's newspapers.
November 22, 2005
Dennis FitzSimons
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Tribune Company
435 North Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611
Mr. FitzSimons,
I write you on behalf of the Association
of American Editorial Cartoonists concerning the impending job
cuts at the Tribune Company newspapers.
An early casualty of these austerity
measures was editorial cartoonist Michael Ramirez, who lost his
job in a round of cuts that will see some 85 positions eliminated
at the Los Angeles Times. The firing of a Pulitzer Prize winning
cartoonist was understandably met with disbelief, but that disbelief
quickly turned to dismay when the Times announced it does not
intend to fill the vacancy left by his dismissal.
That announcement served as an abrupt
conclusion to a long and rich tradition of editorial cartooning
at the LA Times, a tradition that not only helped earn the paper
its world class reputation, but also earned its cartoonists five
Pulitzer Prizes.
The logic of Michael's termination may
be debatable, but the elimination of the editorial cartooning
position is not. There are few journalists in a newsroom who
can define the tone and identity of a publication like an editorial
cartoonist does. By discarding those who make a newspaper unique,
you rob it of its character. By robbing a newspaper of its character,
you steal its spirit.
The fate of several editorial cartoonists
now hangs in the balance as other newspapers within your company
look to make staff cuts. We hope that further reductions can
be achieved without the loss of any of the outstanding cartoonists
that you currently employ. The sacrifice of even one of them
would be a disservice to their readers, a detriment to their
newspaper, and ultimately regrettable to the Tribune Company
itself.
Sincerely,
Clay Bennett
President
Association of American Editorial Cartoonists
NOVEMBER 18, 2005
We don't get regular cartoon deliveries from Kirk
Anderson any more, but every once in a while he sends us
an epic cartoon -and we got a new Anderson epic today, Banana
Republicans. E-mail Kirk.
NOVEMBER 16 2005
JIMMY MARGULIES
WINS THE 2005 BERRYMAN AWARD
Congratulations to Jimmy
Margulies of the New Jersey Record for winning the 2005 Clifford
K. & James T. Berryman Award for Editorial Cartoons from
the National Press Foundation! You can e-mail your own congratulations
to Jimmy here.
The portfolio of five cartoons that won the award is below. Congratulations,
Jimmy!
 NOVEMBER
14, 2005
THAT FRENCH CARTOON TRANSLATION
PART DEUX
French cartoonist Pierre Ballouhey sent
the cartoon at the right and asked me:
How would you say, in contemporary US
rappers' or ghetto slang: "We
had agreed we wouldn't be burning the drug-dealers' cars!!!"
I didn't have a good answer so I asked
our readers. A selection of your responses is below, starting
with the complaints. Pierre chose to go with the wording at the
right. First, here's a note from Pierre's translator, Henri.
Dear Daryl,
I'm French and, as Pierre's usual translator into English, I'm
getting more and more acutely aware of the gap between our cultures.
An interesting point about this car burning cartoon is that,
apparently, a lot of your American readers couldn't identify
the guy in the dark suit as a drug-dealer (Pierre has forwarded
most of the mails to me).
Well, he is a drug-dealer (and a victim too!). The guys
who push dope around our Black and Arab ghettoes know better
than to dress like rappers, as it would be the surest way to
get instantly "controlled" by the cops.
And this is another point that the cartoon is making (in French
at least) : contrary to the kids, whom one might picture as young
victims of the system, the dealers are rich, they dress in smart
middle-class clothes, dark suits, and drive expensive cars. Also
they're older. They are business-men in their way, whether they
be Black, Brown or White. They are not militant at all. They
make money out of the kids, and so, in a way, exploit them as
badly as the system does.
As for the riots themselves, they've been a long time brewing.
Basically these kids live in concrete high-rise blocks miles
away from any social life, gymnasiums or even bars. Their idea
of having fun is to come down on the city-centres and torch cars.
Half their families are out of work, and a lot of the adults
can't get jobs due to racial prejudice. Many economic and cultural
factors prevent the parents from educating their kids properly.
So, really, they have nothing to lose. Running amok is the one
cheap thing left to them. The most militant among them will turn
to hardcore islamism and end up in training camps in Afghanistan
or wherever. But the vast majority is happy smoking a little
dope and running wild.
Things will calm down. And start again later on. Look back on
the US black ghetto situation in the 70s and 80s. The only way
to really solve the problem is to give these people jobs and
a sense of belonging to the country that has welcomed them. Problem
: they are second or third generation immigrants and should have
assimilated by now. Question : what can we do to assimilate them
into the social fabric in these days of worldwide economic crisis?
Life is not a simple proposition.
Yours,
Henri
Excuse me, but are all street dealers black?
Ginny Hoskins
AS AN AFRICAN AMERICAN FEMALE, I
THINK IT'S POLITICALLY INCORRECT AND IGNORANT TO REQUEST AN EBONICS
TRANSLATION FOR THIS CARTOON...SEEMS LIKE SOME ARE AS RACIALLY
IGNORANT IN FRANCE AS ARE MANY IN TH UNITED STATES....WILL YOU
NEVER LEARN?
SHAME ON YOU!
Toni Rudd
As a young, black subscriber to the Cagle
News political cartoons I would like to express how offended
I am by your request.
To ask your readers for simple "slang"
would have been enough, but to proceed to ask for black, ebonics,
etc was too much and over the top. I am very disappointed
because I enjoy checking my email each day for the latest edition
but this morning I am deeply offended.
s.d.c.
Whut fo' you up'n
flamin' homes ride, bee-otch?!!?!!???
McBob, Boring , OR
Whad up dogs! I told ya Don't
be beasting on my Peoples Rides! Son!
Michael Hamlett
Yo! Dawgs! we made the peace on
you not torchin' the distribution brutha's rides. Dawg.
Robert M.
How about, "Hey, muf'fos, why fo
yo be burnin' yo dealer's wheels, when yo said yo wun't?"
RenoTrance
"We ain't 'sposed to be lightin'
them pushas cars on fire, yo!"
OR
"We ain't 'sposed to be burnin' them dealers rides, yo."
I could come up with a few more if you need me to. The second
one is my favorite. I hope you guys haven't already found one.
Good luck with it.
Regards,
Miranda
We done agreed we wasn't gonna be burnin no drug-daddy's cars!
or
It been done agreed that no drug dealer's cars would burn!
Abhinav
My own attempt at translating it with the
right mood and flavor would have been something like: "Yo!
Ya'll done swore you wouldn't burn no dealers' cars!!!"
That's my read on it. If you get some better-sounding ones, I
hope you'll share them.
Millie Webb (Madison, WI)
Here's what I came up
with:
Y'all l'il fools done gave me yo' word that you wouldn't
be torchin' the dealers' rides (or whips)! you could also
say "smack dealers'"
Being a white, conservative female myself, I'm only going by
what I hear around.
Dana Hemminger, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, USA
I
had hoped for better, but the translation in "jive"
didn't add much (nor did redneck or Elmer Fudd)
For future translations, trhough, you might want to try www.rinkworks.com/dialect
Regards.
John Lindemann
Burn our wheels, Monsuers, and get a lack; of snorting snow,
injecting smack!!!
Cosmic Reason
Now you know you wasn't supposed
to torch no gansta's ride"
Georgette Liberty-Reid
Dear Mr Cagle & Pierre:
May I answer semi-poetically? (You could almost rap sing this
stuff below!)
You done promised not to torch the drug man's wheels!
Why you bros' torch a drug bros' wheels?
You said you'd skip these druggie wheels, bro!
You done lied on your deal not to touch this man's wheels!
You blew the deal not to burn these pusher's wheels!
So you is bad and not must pay, I'm gonna torch your wheels some
day! Unh Hunh, Unh Hunh!
You'll get cartooned, you'll get lampooned, for what you done
is not well tuned!
We gonna put you in the paper fine, and then you gonna to some
time! Oh Yeah, Oh Yeah!
*****
Well, I hope this was helpful to you. If you use any of the possible
caption suggestions, an autographed copy to the toon would be
nice!
Thank you. Sincerely,
Pierre M. Laberge
Word- Burnin Dealer Rides? Nah
nah nah.
Ben Frisch
 NOVEMBER 11, 2005
'Tulsa World' Fires Cartoonist for Plagiarism
By Dave Astor, from Editor
& Publisher, with permission
Published: November 11, 2005 2:03 PM ET
NEW YORK Tulsa (Okla.) World editorial cartoonist David
Simpson was fired Thursday after being charged with plagiarism.
The Hartford (Conn.) Courant's Bob Englehart,
who informed E&P about the firing, was the cartoonist whose
work was copied.
"It was an obvious theft," said
Englehart, who added that Simpson has been accused of plagiarism
in the past by other cartoonists.
Simpson could not be immediately reached
for comment.
Englehart's cartoon was actually from way
back in 1981, while Simpson's version ran this June. Englehardt
surmised that Simpson saw it in a book collection before drawing
it for the World. Someone familiar with Englehardt's work noticed
the cartoon while traveling and mailed it to the Courant. The
paper informed the World, which investigated the matter and made
its decision.
The three-part cartoon was headlined: "When
Does Life Begin?" A priest answers: "At the moment
of conception." A judge answers: "At birth." A
kid answers: "When you get your driver's license."
Englehart said Simpson's version was virtually identical.
Englehart is puzzled about why Simpson
copied him. "He's a really good cartoonist," said the
Courant staffer. "There was no reason he had to do this."
When reached Friday, World Editorial Page
Editor Ken Neal referred E&P to World Publisher Robert Lorton
for comment. Lorton could not be reached immediately. TulsaWorld.com
posted a story on Friday about the firing, with the headline
"World cartoonist loses job after plagiarism investigation."
The subhed read: "The Tulsa World dismissed its longtime
editorial cartoonist David Simpson on Thursday. The dismissal
came after allegations of plagiarism surfaced involving a cartoon
that appeared in the World in June."
Englehart, who will mark his 25th anniversary
at the Courant next month, is syndicated by Cagle Cartoons.
(Above) is Englehart's 1981 original followed
by the plagiarized version that got Simpson fired.
Read
an article from the Hartford Courant with more details.
MICHAEL RAMIREZ
LAID OFF BY THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
The nation's top conservative cartoonist
lost his job today as the Los Angeles Times announced that it
was laying off Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, Michael
Ramirez. The Times also laid off liberal columnist Robert
Scheer.
Ramirez is likely the most widely syndicated
cartoonist who is sold individually and not in a package service.
He's known for brilliant drawings and a consistently strong conservative
point of view that was a stark contrast to the liberal editorial
pages at the LA Times. The Times quotes Ramirez,
"I can't help but think it's also
a philosophical parting of ways." He said he also believed
his removal was partly due to budgetary concerns, as well as
a desire to change the look of the editorial pages."
It is expected that the Times will not
hire a replacement for Ramirez. The Chicago Tribune, which owns
the Times, has not hired a staff editorial cartoonist in recent
years since the death of their Pulitzer Prize winner, Jeff MacNelly.
The Los Angeles Times also recently cancelled
their subscriptions to syndicated editorial cartoons, keeping
subscriptions to only three liberal cartoonists Ted Rall, Jeff
Danziger and Tom Toles. They are expected to commission occasional
cartoon illustrations and have been purchasing exclusive freelance
cartoons from a variety of freelancers, including Mr. Fish (Dwayne
Booth).
This is the latest in a series of shakeups
at the Times, including the recent layoff of my former editor,
Michael Kinsley. The Times has a rich tradition of editorial
cartoonists that comes to an end with Ramirez, their former cartoonist,
three time Pulitzer Prize winner, Paul Conrad, took early retirement
from the Times and continues to draw in syndication.
Ramirez and Scheer React to Being Dropped
by the 'LA Times'
By Dave Astor of Editor
& Publisher, posted with permission
Published: November 11, 2005 5:44 PM ET
NEW YORK Conservative editorial cartoonist Michael Ramirez
thinks the Los Angeles Times is letting him go for both budgetary
and ideological reasons. Liberal columnist Robert Scheer, who's
also being dropped, believes the reason is mostly ideological
in his case.
Scheer told E&P he heard that one higher-up
at the Times "couldn't stand" the progressive nature
of his column, which in recent years included anti-Iraq War commentary.
"I didn't expect any flowers, but
to be canned while doing some of my best work is confusing,"
he said.
Scheer -- who thinks the Times' new mix
of Op-Ed columns leans more conservative -- added that, as a
Times contributor rather than staffer, he hadn't been costing
the paper much money.
Times Op-Ed Editor Nicholas Goldberg defended
the opinion-page changes in a Times article (E&P Online,
Nov. 11). "I think we've put together a smart, original,
and provocative team of writers who reflect a variety of interesting
and thoughtful perspectives on local, national, and foreign affairs,"
he was quoted as saying. He added: "I don't think these
changes are going to move the page to the left or the right."
Still, Scheer emphasized that he enjoyed
his 29 years with the Times (the first 17 as a full-time reporter).
"I had a good run," he said. "It has been a really
great experience, and the Times stood behind me in the past."
Scheer -- who says he has already received
about 500 e-mails from readers criticizing the Times' decision
to drop him -- added that he has plenty of other things to do
as co-host of a radio show, as a professor at the University
of Southern California, and as editor of the TruthDig.com Web
magazine launching Nov. 28. Plus he'll continue writing his column
for Creators Syndicate, which distributes Scheer to more than
50 newspapers and Web sites.
Ramirez also said he enjoyed his tenure
at the Times, but is unhappy on several levels about being let
go.
"I'm sad to be leaving the Times,
but it's also a sad day for editorial cartooning that they're
not going to fill the position," said Ramirez, when reached
at home Friday by E&P.
The Times said it won't replace Ramirez
after he departs at the end of December, meaning the paper will
no longer have a staff cartoonist.
Ramirez is also unhappy that layoffs of
all kinds of staffers are hurting the Times and other papers.
"They're cutting meat off the bone," said the cartoonist,
who won a Pulitzer Prize while with The Commercial Appeal of
Memphis in 1994 and joined the Times three years later.
Copley News Service will continue to syndicate
Ramirez's work to more than 400 newspapers while the cartoonist
looks around to see if there's a new full-time job out there
for him.
"We were shocked and surprised that
the Times let Mike go, but it doesn't make any difference to
us," said Copley Vice President and Editor Glenda Winders.
"We'll still be syndicating him. We stand behind him 100%."
Creators President Rick Newcombe, using
nearly identical language, said his syndicate is "100% behind
Bob Scheer."
The former Los Angeles Times Syndicate
executive also recalled working with Scheer more than two decades
ago. "I encouraged him to write a column," said Newcombe.
"I like columnists and cartoonists like Scheer and Ramirez
who have strong opinions and are anything but dull." He
noted that, as talk radio and cable news channels have shown,
offering hard-hitting commentary "is a great way" to
attract an audience.
Dave Astor (dastor@editorandpublisher.com)
is a senior editor at E&P.
 NOVEMBER
9, 2005
GRAB BAG
French cartoonist Pierre Ballouhey sent me the cartoon at the
right with this request:
Dear Daryl,
How would you say, in contemporary US rappers' or ghetto slang:
"We had agreed we wouldn't be burning
the drug-dealers' cars!!!"
(literally: one had agreed one wouldn't burn... or it was
agreed that drug-dealers' cars wouldn't burn).
The subtlety here is that the pusher is
using slang, but the way he builds his sentence is that of a
school-teacher: a very impersonal construction (he's mad at the
kids, but he's not accusing them directly), which, in French,
is also ambiguous, as ON ("one") frequently
means NOUS ("we")in loose speech. Can you help?
Pierre
I regret that I'm a little rusty on my
Ebonics and I'm not much help on this --so I thought I would
ask our readers. Can you come up with contemporary, cool, American,
black, street slang that would fit what Pierre is trying to say
in this cartoon? If you have a creative, Ebonic translation for
us, please e-mail
it to us and to Pierre.
 SIGNE
Today we have a new collection of cartoons
called "Kid 'n Guns" by the only woman political cartoonist
who has a job working for a newspaper in America, Signe Wilkinson.
Click here and see. It doesn't
speak well for our profession that there is only one woman cartoonist
with a job. Signe is a rarity (and a Pulitzer Prize winner).
Signe has a new book out titled, "One Nation, Under Surveillance."
Click here to order
Signe's cool book for only $12.99. Click
here to see Signe's archive.
OOOOOH! THOSE LIMITED EDITION PRINTS
...
 So, here I am looking like a jerk on day two of
my limited edition print epic journey. You guys have been buying
a bunch of our cool new The BIG Book of Bush on Amazon.com,
and each book sold on Amazon was supposed to come with the signed
print, and the prints didn't get to Amazon, so the publisher
said they would send them out to everyone who bought a book,
then the publisher screwed up their e-mail address and it was
messy. To make a long story short, it is all sorted out now.
Just buy our The BIG Book of BUSH on Amazon through
this link for only $10.17 and send an email to our publisher
at cartoons@quepublishing.com,
let the publisher know that you bought a book and give your mailing
address, the publisher will mail you my nice little signed, limited
edition print. You can also buy the book at Borders or
Barnes & Noble, but you won't get a cute little signed
print and the book costs $14.95 in the stores.
Oh, what a long, hard journey this has
been. Ooooh. (Great book though! Five years of Bush Bashing from
our web site, all bound up and pretty!)
NOVEMBER
4, 2005
THE RESPONSE TO MIKE'S ALITO-ABORTION CARTOON
First we have a comment from Mike, and then a selection from
our mail bag.
By way of disclaimer, first let me say
that I researched, wrote, drew and posted the cartoon as I do
everyday. It is my reaction to social stimuli. No ulterior motives
were at work here. To attract attention, court opinion and become
a focal point of the Cagle Blog was the syndicates idea. Not
mine.
I prefer not to explain my cartoons
and have very little say about this particular piece other than
to point back to it's original message. It's really nothing more
than a 'goose and gander' set up taken to the extreme.
Trust me, I wasn't drawing the cartoon
equivalent to the Da Vinci code. The sad truth for the postulating
conspiracy crowd is that it's just a cartoon.
You can, however rearrange the letters
in the caption to spell, "MIKE LESTER IS SATAN".
Mike
Lester
And here are selected comments ...
Well done ! However, I should warn you
that liberals do not like to have their own "talking points"
taken to their absurd conclusions and then used against them.
Be prepared for some mighty interesting fan mail.
Remember: If no one is upset with you, then your probably not
doing your job.
Michael Yunkmann
This cartoon clearly demonstrates the gulf between "pro-life"
and a woman's right to control her own life and body. This cartoon's
equation of infanticide (killing a baby) and abortion (terminating
a pregnancy) is the kind of thinking that has divided a nation
for decades, long before Roe v. Wade. I am still waiting for
an explanation from those who would deny a woman this right how
it is that "God's natural design" spontaneously aborts
some 50% of fertilized eggs from conception to birth, but terminating
a pregnancy is murder. When Judge Alito restricts a woman's right
to her body, he is playing God.
David J. Biviano, Seattle
I heard of a born-again prolifer; who was his daughters abortionist;
On telling her father of her condition; and desire to abort the
fetus! Dad flew into an indigenant rage; the dawter started to
bleed after being bounced off the second wall; going into a missed
carrage. Civilized man in his foolishness puts labels on every
thing; then grants legal rights to the label
All Parents arn't loving careing people!
Many are vain; especially of their reputations!
From Cosmic Reason
Mike:
You nailed the illogical nature of abortion perfectly! If you
wouldn't kill a newborn baby, why slice and dice a perfectly
healthy fetus?
Please don't use my name, though, there will be repercussions
in my community, as I fundraise for a public radio station.
Great work, Jeff MacNelly would have been proud!
A man or woman should be required to notify the
other parent if they intend to kill an unborn child. There is
no more intimate way that two people "become one flesh"
than to conceive a child. Once a child is conceived, to abort
it is murder. With consent of the "significant other,"
that person becomes an accessory to murder.
To abort a child is the single most selfish thing a human can
do. If you don't want children, get yourselves fixed - please.
If you are pregnant, have the child and give it to someone else
to love.
Barb Rosolowski
Thank you. Conservatives have to
get off their politically correct behinds and commit themselves
to drawing big, flashing-neon arrows at what liberals have
done and continue to do to our society. Their
attitudes are pervasive and insidious and we have allowed
the minority to speak for the majority far too long. I
make no apologies for my values, I've stopped holding my tongue
and I'm not alone. It's time we step up.
L McDaniel
Until men can become pregnant, women
must have the final say in whether or not to continue a pregnancy,
period, end. If a man doesn't like this, then he should not have
sex, period, end, as there is no 100 percent effective contraceptive
method.
Cathy Reilly
Interesting cartoon. I am sure you
are going to get a lot of complaints. It is actually an excellent
way to cause people who think to think about the issue. Most
people, however, do not think :-)
Andrew Szkotak
This cartoon is not politically
correct for the same reason that a liberal woman is not taken
to task for calling that 'thing' in her womb a "baby"
when she wants it, and a 'fetus' when she doesn't. Mr.
Lister is brilliant and uses the idea of post-birth abortion
justified by a legal term, as a vehicle for dealing with this
hypocrisy. Brilliant!
Kelly Wood
It's pretty simple really. Everyone,
even misguided cartoonists are entitled to an opinion.
Obviously there are some folks who disagree. When does life begin?
What constitutes life? Who decides what? Who burns in Hell? For
what?
History has always deemed that the embryo is not a living human
being. Therefore, the cartoon does not hold water if you subscribe
to the historical argument.
Disagree with the idea?
Funny, it is the same argument the so-called "pro-life"
crowd likes to use as justification for condemning homosexuality.
After all, the "queers" have been "devalued",
too many times to the point of death, but apparently that argument
wouldn't be accepted when it comes to a discussion about abortion.
Just a thought.
Michael Fain
Good piece, Mike. It could be couched
in notification of vasectomy too. If you do another one on this
subject could you address the issue of love between a couple.
I haven't seen one cartoon that showed that. With love comes
respect which I see as components to any partnership.
Keep up the work!
Deborah
Y'know, no one likes abortions. No one.
You don't like them, and the women who get them don't. What do
you know -- we all agree here!
Since we agree, maybe we should focus on the problem (not the
symptom -- the abortions), which is why there are unwanted
pregnancies in the first place. Maybe education would help (abstinence
is admittedly a good message for some people, but not for all).
Maybe easier access to birth control. Maybe there are particular
conditions that foster pregnancies (poverty, for example?).
I don't have a quick resolution to this problem. But I suggest
we stop focusing on where we disagree ("Abortion is wrong!"
"No -- lack of choice is wrong!") and work _together_
on stopping unwanted pregnancies. Let's focus on the cause, not
the symptom.
Bob Seidensticker
Dear cartoonist,
Thank you for poignantly stating exactly what is happening today!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Sincerely, Mrs. Epp (mother of 4)
What kind of
marriage would it be where a woman would not want to tell the
man she wants an abortion? Perhaps she is being abused. Perhaps
she knows he is going to leave her and not pay child support
(which is the usual case).
You are an idiot!
Anne Favor
Thanks, Mike,
I'd give it three thumbs up, but I only have two.
Rolly Church
If abortion were killing a baby why
don't we have funerals for miscarriages?
Dan Wedin
Very provocative. I like the turn of
the tables. Kind of like the fact that in Texas you can be charged
with killing an unborn baby, unless you are the mother and the
killing is part of a medical procedure." A women's right
to control her own body" and "when does life start?"
arguments aside, abortion is murder. I would hope that couples
would discuss the topic before a woman went and had an abortion,
but I think a husband has an interest in seeing his child be
born. Keep up the good work.
David Christianson
You need to consider that these
days, a woman who does not want her baby will not refrain from
using drugs and/or alcohol if she chooses and will usually keep
the baby and neglect or abuse it. I didn't want to be pregnant
but would never kill one of my children (unborn or after birth).
A women who would like an abortion is much less likely to care
for her child properly. Children are an inconvenience to them.
This ends up costing the taxpayer a bundle! I know, I work as
a Social Worker who tries to clean up the mess afterward.
I don't have the statistics, but I have the experience!
Cecelia Mowers
Have you ever heard a married woman
say "I am having a baby." or do they usually say "We're
having a baby." I've heard married couples go so far as
to say "We're pregnant." Notification only makes sense.
The man has (nearly) as much at stake as the woman. The least
he could get is notification. Also, I've heard the word "notification"
in this debate often, but never heard the word "consent".
From what I've seen and heard, the judgment had nothing to do
with a woman asking her husband if she could have an abortion...it
had everything to do with telling the husband that his wife wanted
to kill their baby.
Matthew Woelfersheim
I agree completely. A women's
body is her own until she decides to sublet it to a baby. Then
the baby has right of occupancy until it's born. If she
doesn't want to have one she can easily keep it from happening.
If she does have one it's 50% her husband's (hopefully) and
he deserves to know if she's going to murder it.
Tygerkittn
Remember when there were Republicans
who called themselves ''compassionate conservatives''? Now that
Bush followers amount to no more than 35% of Americans who support
his handeling of the affairs of state, I guess his supporters
are now ''constipated conservatives''. They can't flush
his ideas out of their systems. Mr. Lester seems to be one of
those.
Ned Moulton
Dear Mr. Lester,
Your cartoon depicting a woman asking her husband why he just
killed her baby without telling her and his reasoning from a
Supreme Court ruling that Judge Alito opposed in 1992 was right
on! It shows the insanity and selfishness of the abortion mindset.
I enjoy your cartoons because they show the foolishness of the
current way of thinking when left leaning liberal philosophies
are brought to their logical conclusions. Keep up the good work
of revealing the madness!
Blessings,
Cheryl Everett
Hardly the same thing, is it! Would
it generate the same feeling if the cartoon showed
the husband hiding a morning-after pill bottle and the wife saying
"Why didn't you tell me before you decided to kill our baby?"
The real question is where you draw the line. Can the wife take
birth-control pills without telling her husband? Can she use
spermicidal gel?
Suppose the husband is opposed to abortion even if having the
baby would endanger his wife's life? Is he entitled to know that
she has chosen her life over the life of an embryo/fetus?
This cartoon is a typical example of the conservative's irrational
viewpoint.
Lynne
That really puts the issue in perspective. Thanks!
M. Brown
I'll bet that cartoon got a lot of laughs
at the local battered women's shelter.
Daryl, can't your conservative cartoonist friends do any better
than this? I want something real to debate, not a farce. Oh,
well. Off to the rant.
Mr. Lester is (in my opinion) an intellectual coward. He twisted
the original thinking of the majority opinion around into something
that it couldn't have possibly been meant to be, and then held
his distorted picture up as though it represented their well-reasoned
opinion. A common ploy in political cartoons, but this one went
so wide of the mark that it comes close to being incompetent
cartooning.
Mr. Lester, the undue burden isn't in the telling. It's what
can happen after the telling. And the only way you could have
come close to portraying the real burden in this cartoon would
be if you had drawn the woman with an obviously mean disposition,
carrying a baseball bat, and about 18 inches taller and 150 pounds
heavier than the man. And you would have had to have drawn the
man with an extensively bruised countenance. That might have
conveyed some sense of the burden that the majority opinion was
trying to avoid placing on someone.
But the reality of that image would have run counter to the point
you were trying to make, wouldn't it? So it appears that you
took a page out of Mr.
Bush's playbook and decided not to let reality get in the way
of your message.
As I said, an intellectual coward. But, not to worry. You've
got Mr. Bush for company. Just don't start thinking for yourself,
you might turn into a Democrat.
Jim Berry
Dear Mr. Lester,
I'm sure Daryl Cagle's presumption will be valid. But I thank
you for underlining the OTHER side of the subject. You needn't
live in or near any large metro. area to hear the tragic news
of a "father" ( "Deadbeat Dad" sub-class
?) murdering his own child(ren). I never remembering hearing
of a "deadly-dad" pondering bearing up under
the "Undue Burden" telling that to the mother. I confess
loudly to membership in the "Pro Choice" camp. I also
support Stem Cell research with umbilical cord cell components.
Thanks, again, for your very evocative 'toon: with the nice weather
outside the window, slumped, defeated, dad, mom not
particularly distressed, Space mobile (modern science?), scallop
shell night light (symbol of baptism?). Thank you for making
me think! (Yippee!- at 63 if I still want to) Good luck. don
helmets & flak jackets. Sally O.
THAT IS EXACTLY
WHAT WOMEN SAY WHEN THEY ABORT, GOOD TWIST
Kesha Hinton
Thanks for illustrating why birth
control and the right to choose are important.
The fantasy of having a cute little baby to make YOU feel good
and the reality of actually having to be responsible for the
care and nurturing of another life are totally at odds. Too many
children are used and abused and even killed when that reality
becomes known. Tragedy after tragedy could be avoided if birth
control and the right to abortion was in the hands of the women
who have to suffer the consequences of those tragedies.
Mary Pollock
NOVEMBER 3 2005
AN INVITATION
Every so often a cartoon comes in that
I know will generate a heated response from readers. I can hide
and hope no one notices, or I can hold it up and invite response.
Here you go; let us know what you think. E-mail
conservative cartoonist Mike Lester and us by clicking here with
your comments. We'll post the best comments in the blog.
And click here to see our Judge Alito
cartoons.
Cartoon by Mike
Lester of the Rome News-Tribune (GA)
NOVEMBER 2, 2005
Student Career Questions
Hello Mr. Cagle.
My name is Brad Rudolph and I am a student at Smithsburg Middle
School in Smithsburg, Maryland. In my Language Arts class, we
are studying careers. As part of this assignment, I must choose
a job that I find interesting and then interview a person who
does this job. I have decided that I would like to interview
someone, like you, who works as a cartoonist. I spoke to Cari
from your office, and she suggested I email you with my questions.
Would you please answer the following questions at your earliest
convenience?
Hi Brad,
Without objection, I'm posting this in my blog. I get a lot of
e-mails like yours and I think my responses will be of interest
to many students who have the same assignment.
1. What is a typical day for a cartoonist?
Get up, look at the news. Think. Take
a nap. Notice that it is late and I have no ideas for cartoons.
Draw something quick.
2. What talents or experience do you need to get into this field?
There are very few editorial cartoonists
who have staff positions (about 90 in the USA) so it is hard
to draw broad conclusions. I worked as a cartoonist in every
other area of cartooning for 25 years before becoming an editorial
cartoonist, but mid career changes are unusual for political
cartoonists who most often were cartoonists for their college
newspapers and got jobs in the newspaper industry right after
college. As a freelancer who works with MSNBC, I don't fit the
mold.
3. Do you get any benefits and health factors, and if so, what
are they?
No, I don't
4. How many hours do you work on average per day?
10 (including the nap).
5. What motivates you to stay in this field?
Poor judgment.
6. What do like and dislike the most about your job?
It is wonderful to be able to draw my
opinions and know that a large audience sees what I have to say.
Having worked in books, magazines, advertising, animation, comics
- I can't imagine doing anything else. I wouldn't do something
else now that I am hooked on being a political cartoonist; it
is great fun. The worst thing about being a political cartoonist
is trying to find a job.
7. What is the average yearly earnings for a cartoonist?
Cartoonists earn between zero and thirty
million dollars a year (that would be Charles Schulz or maybe
Jim Davis at his peak with Garfield). This is much like asking
"how much money does an actor make?" Or a novelist,
or a screenwriter, or an inventor. The answer would be the same
for all, and most would earn much closer to zero dollars per
year than thirty million.
8. What education and training do you need for this career?
Education and training are necessary
for cartoonists only to the extent that well educated cartoonists
are better cartoonists. A diploma has little value for a cartoonist,
what matters is the cartoons. If a cartoonist does great work,
his work will be noticed. It is all about the quality of the
work.
9. Out of 100 people starting out in this field, about how many
will see their work published within two years?
It is not hard to get your work published
as an editorial cartoonist. Go to a small local paper with some
good cartoons on local issues and don't ask to be paid you
are very likely to get your work published right away. What is
difficult is getting a real job as a political cartoonist. With
only 90 jobs for political cartoonists, it is much more realistic
to seek out a job as a pro basketball player in the NBA, or a
major league baseball player.
That said, there are lots of opportunities
in other areas of cartooning. A talented cartoonist should not
have trouble finding jobs. As with any profession, there is a
lot of competition for some jobs. Regrettably, a lot of people
want to be editorial cartoonists and few newspapers want to hire
editorial cartoonists.
Thank you very much for taking the time to assist me with the
project.
Brad Rudolph
Hagerstown, MD
Good luck, Brad!
NOVEMBER 1, 2005
Cartoonists and Cockroaches
By Daryl Cagle
A column in Sunday's Los Angeles Times
starts off like this:
"POPE JOHN XXIII, or 'Good Pope John,'
remains one of the most beloved figures in recent Catholic history.
Among treasured memories of this kindly, roly-poly pope, perhaps
none looms larger than the evening of Oct. 11, 1962, when he
told a vast crowd on a moonlit night in St. Peter's Square, 'Go
home tonight and give your children a kiss, and tell them that
this kiss comes from the pope.' When German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger,
the Vatican's stern doctrinal enforcer, was elected as Benedict
XVI in April, an editorial cartoon in an Italian paper showed
him looking at a similar crowd and saying, 'Go home tonight and
give your children a spanking, and tell them that this spanking
comes from the pope.'
"In a nutshell, the cartoon captured
many people's expectations of Benedict XVI: a hard-line taskmaster
who would bring liberals and dissenters in Roman Catholicism
to heel."
Speakers and columnists, like this one,
often quote cartoons but seldom mention the name of the cartoonist.
With this writer, one fourth of his column came from an uncredited
cartoonist. (I think it is fitting that one fourth of my own
column starts off with a quote from a writer whom I have chosen
not to name.) Writers are almost always named when they are quoted,
but cartoons seem to be mere anecdotes that deserve no attribution
beyond, "I saw this cartoon "
An unnamed op-ed page editor at the Los
Angeles Times told me that he doesn't like political cartoons
because they tend to "overpower the words that surround
them." He went on to tell me that his two favorite cartoonists
are Tom Toles and Ted Rall, two cartoonists with rudimentary
drawing styles who put lots of words into their cartoons; this
editor liked these cartoonists because they were "more like
writers than artists."
There seems to be a natural friction between
the "picture people" and the "word people"
who are troubled by those powerful pictures. A famously unnamed
editor at The New York Times is quoted as saying, "We would
never hire an editorial cartoonist at the Times, because we would
never give so much power to one man." Another unnamed New
York Times editor is quoted as saying, "We don't like editorial
cartoons at the Times because you can't edit a cartoon like you
can edit words."
Editors see cartoonists as "bomb throwers,"
because cartoonists enjoy a different set of journalist ethics
than writers. Cartoonists can put any words into the mouth of
a public figure, whether those words were actual quotes or not.
Cartoons make readers angry. A strong political cartoon generates
much more mail from readers than the strongest words. Most editors
are timid and want to avoid controversy; they choose to run syndicated
cartoons that are unobjectionable gags about current topics.
Cartoonists call this "Newsweekification" after the
inoffensive, bland and opinionless - but funny - political cartoons
that Newsweek magazine chooses to reprint each week, further
trivializing political cartoons.
The power and effectiveness of political
cartoons cause more and more newspapers to avoid cartoons. There
are half as many editorial cartoonist jobs as there were 75 years
ago. Of the biggest newspapers in America - The Wall Street Journal,
USA Today, The New York Times, the New York Daily News, the Chicago
Tribune - none have political cartoonists on staff.
The newspaper industry often complains
about a dwindling and aging readership as younger readers prefer
to get their news through other media. The old-line "word
people" lament that youngsters nowadays get their news from
Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show." In fact, most young
people get their news from political cartoons. Every state in
the United States has middle and high school students interpret
an editorial cartoon as part of state-mandated testing. Teachers
who must "teach to the test" include political cartoons
in their classes. Students learn their current events through
political cartoons and, ironically, most of the students see
newspaper political cartoons on the Internet rather than on paper
(visit www.cagle.com). The "word people" who run newspapers
have "Newspapers In Education" programs to try to develop
a younger readership, but when a stack of newspapers is dropped
on a teacher's doorstep once a week, there is usually only one
political cartoon on the editorial page not very useful
to a teacher who only needs the newspaper to teach about editorial
cartoons.
Perhaps in the future we'll see this turn
around, and see more columns like this one, where cartoonists'
names are mentioned and writers' names are not; when that happens,
I expect traditional newspapers will have long gone extinct.
Just as the cockroach will continue to roam the Earth long after
mankind has disappeared, political cartoonists will still be
crawling out from dark corners long after the "word people"
have killed off newspapers.
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